The new adventures of Texas' old voter ID law

At this point, there’s nothing new anybody is going to say about voter ID laws that will change a large swath of the public’s view of the issue. That’s even more the case in Texas, which has become, perhaps only second to Wisconsin, among the loudest defenders of its stringent voter ID requirements.

Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott on his personal Twitter account, have pounced on a story about a Fort Worth woman, a 2011 candidate for a Democratic precinct chairmanship, who admitted to “having her son vote on behalf of his father,” as the Star-Telegram reported. The whole plot unraveled when the boy’s father arrived to vote later that day.

Sunday night, Abbott tweeted “this is why I’ve fought for voter ID,” linking to the story and echoing another tweet he sent in 2012 that asked, “Think voter fraud doesn’t exist?”

If Texas Democrats had a statewide elected official, you can bet your house that they’d be charged with punching back at Abbott and his party. That’s not to discredit the work that Democratic state lawmakers have done to raise the issue since 2011. But, as a sheer political issue, Democrats have nobody on this with as much of a high profile as Republicans do.

That’s why it’s up to the Democratic Party’s national big-wigs to raise the issue whenever they have a chance. Even though Hillary Clinton won’t win Texas, her campaign OK’d her trip to Houston on Friday not only to receive a medal, but to bring her star power to talk up an issue that’s been languishing in the courts for a long time. Texas won’t be blue in 2016, but the point of her talk here was to puncture the GOP bubble in true swing states – think Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida – that have or may be thinking about voter ID laws that will hurt her turnout effort.

It wasn’t, however, only about all the cameras that we sure to be at Texas Southern University last week. It was also about her tone, at times pointed and at other times downright incendiary. She pilloried Republicans on voter ID efforts across the country, saying the entire party was behind an effort to “systematically and deliberately (try) to stop millions of citizens from voting.”

She effectively called Abbott’s position “fear-mongering” and asked his allies to “(explain) why they are so scared of letting citizens have their say.”

So, here comes former Gov. Rick Perry into the conversation. Launching his 2016 bid days earlier, he was all but certain to get a voter ID question when he did the Sunday shows.

“I think it is way outside the norm of ridiculous, if you want to know the truth in the matter, to call out the people in the state of Texas, because that’s what she said,” Perry said on CNN’s State of the Union, with the kind of Don’t-Mess-With-Texas swagger he’s known for. “I just happened to be the governor to sign that legislation I had supported.”

Abbott isn’t running for president. Perry is, and if he can stay in the race long enough this time, this is exactly the kind of issue he could take to Iowa and South Carolina Republicans who already loathe Clinton.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has his union-busting record to run on, which is doing wonders for him among conservatives in early-voting states as he takes the lead in several recent polls. This can be Perry’s answer to Walker’s brash conservativism, especially as the former Texas governor tries to simultaneously make the case that the country doesn’t need another senator-cum-president and that he’s the best former governor in the race to lead the GOP to the White House.

Bobby Cervantes is an Austin-based reporter for the Houston Chronicle, where he writes about the politics, policies and personalities of Texas government. He also authors Texas Take, the state’s must-read daily tipsheet covering the latest news from the campaign trail to the Capitol.

Prior to joining the Chronicle, he covered the 2012 presidential election and technology for Politico in Washington, D.C. He has also reported for NBC News, The Texas Tribune, the San Antonio Express-News, the Amarillo Globe-News and The Daily Texan.

A native of the Rio Grande Valley, Bobby graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with degrees in government, journalism and business. He once won the coveted award for most improved swimmer at Boy Scout summer camp. Follow him on Twitter @BobbyCervantes.